Armored personnel vehicles have, as a rule, a flat under-carriage and a sufficiently high clearance between the under-carriage and ground. This high clearance is secured by properly constructing the gear or chain drive works so that the vehicle can move unhindered even on cross country terrain. Unfortunately, the explosive through-effect of a shock wave from a mine exploding under the vehicle impacts on the relatively large surface area of the vehicle's broad under-carriage or under-pan, which deforms and damages the under-carriage and can cause significant damage inside the vehicle as well.
Previously, the following devices and principles for mine protection have been designed with respect to the under-pan.
The simplest precaution, or protective measure, is to provide the under-pan with a secure sheet thickness that protects or shields against a given mine charge. This solution, however, results in a large amount of weight added to the vehicle, which can have its own disadvantageous affects.
Another possibility for protecting against the explosive effect of a land mine lies in constructing the floor plate of a pan to include a sandwich plate made up of various superimposed materials. Such a sandwich plate pan construction is secure and provides protection against a given mine charge. In addition, the floor structure of the pan can be designed with superimposed plates and spaces, for example, air layers, so that the upper most plate experiences no or very little denting as a result of a given mine charge detonating underneath the vehicle.
According to the state of the art, various other proposals for avoiding damage from shock waves generated by, and moving from, exploding mines have been made.
From German Document DE 31 19 786, it is known to place flat armor elements on the underside of the vehicle to protect against mines. In German Document DE 196 31 715, the reference teaches equipping the vehicle floor with a deflector, shaped as a wedge with respect to the floor. This deflector can also be equipped with a gas generator for inflating a fillable gas sack supported from inside of the deflector. This fillable gas sack provides a counter action against the explosion, thereby providing the vehicle with additional protection against landmines.
In German Document DE 196 53 283, a space cell is elastically suspended separately within the vehicle housing to provide a crew space that overcomes some of the shock effects acting on the vehicle from the outside of the vehicle when a landmine explodes nearby.
In further applications of armored vehicles, deformation bodies are provided on the vehicle floor in order to minimize the pressure effect of mines impacting on the under-carriage of the vehicle.
In German Document DE 199 41 928 C2, a street and cross-country-terrain-suitable vehicle (i.e., an all terrain vehicle), particularly a military wheeled vehicle, is described that includes several separateable modules. The base housing is designed as a central carrying unit and contains the internal combustion motor, spaces for necessary cargo uptake (i.e., cargo holds), and serves as the passenger cell. Underneath the base housing, there is a drive stool that takes up the intermediate drive between the motor and the motor's transmission and the wheels.
Unpublished German Document DE 102 59 918.1, which corresponds to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/739,947 to Grosch, describes providing a mine protection device, particularly for wheeled vehicles, in which a detection signal from an ignition and calculation unit is sent out in response to a detected shockwave/compression wave or blast wave. The ignition and calculation unit is connected to a pyrotechnic separation element, and the sending of the detection signal to the pyrotechnic separation element leads to the separation of a wheel construction group, or just the wheel, of the vehicle structure. The pyrotechnic separation of the wheel carrying support structure can take place by using a separation charge, or by using a suitable construction having a separation point with pyrotechnical separation screws. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/739,947 to Grosch is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a suitable protection system that provides an improvement in protection against the effects of an exploding mine using a simple and robust construction to protect the crew of an armored vehicle. It is a further object of the present invention to provide the greatest possible protection against mine explosions, especially against blast mines, by adapting a combination of multiple protection solutions in a single vehicle.